Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Amish Chicken and Noodles

This recipe became an immediate family favorite dinner. Comfort food at it's finest and nothing but but the simplest of ingredients!

Ok, so let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room: there is NO WAY to make this meal look presentable. It's a sloppy pile of beige on beige on beige. I know.

But you're going to have to trust me on this, because it is AMAZING. And I wouldn't want you to miss out on such a fantastic smorgasbord of comfort food!

My husband and I recently discovered quite a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch in his family history. And I promptly became obsessed with Amish recipes 😂. It totally irritates my husband. He thinks his Mexican ancestry is much cooler and would rather me invest my time in learning how to make empanadas and homemade tortillas.
While I can appreciate a good homemade empanada, I happen to think having a rich Amish heritage is SO COOL. And I've decided to take the lead on teaching our kids about their Pennsylvania Dutch roots... through food.

For our family night this week, we made two Amish recipes: a chocolate cake and this odd-seeming mish-mash of comforting carbohydrates.

And let me tell you, to everyone's great surprise... dinner stole the show! There's not much that can compete with chocolate cake in my book (and trust me, it was a GOOD chocolate cake), but I'd take a heaping bowl of these Amish Chicken and Noodles any day of the week.

Here's the breakdown:

The base is a hearty spoonful of mashed potatoes made with cream cheese, butter, and garlic. The stuff dreams are made of.

But here's where the real magic happens: cook chicken thighs in a rich, flavorful stock. Remove the chicken and cook your HOMEMADE NOODLES in the same stock (don't worry, it's easy, I promise). Add the chicken back in, lose some of the liquid (although some of it's going to stay in there and thicken into a beautiful gravy-like soup), and spoon all of that onto the potatoes.

There's nary a green vegetable in sight, but I don't think you'll care. Just this once ;)

Enjoy!

yield: 6 servingsprint recipe

Amish Chicken and Noodles

This recipe became an immediate family favorite dinner. Comfort food at it's finest and nothing but but the simplest of ingredients!

prep time:cook time:total time:

INGREDIENTS:

6 small-medium potatoes

3 tablespoons cream cheese

3 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

6-8 cups water

3 tablespoons chicken base

9 chicken thighs

1/2 tsp garlic powder

INSTRUCTIONS:

Add the water, chicken base, and chicken thighs in a large soup pot. Add more water if needed to cover the chicken completely. Bring to a boil to cook the chicken thighs.

Meanwhile, make the pasta: mix together the eggs and flour until a smooth and somewhat tacky dough forms (I like using the dough hook on my stand mixer for this). Let rest for about 5 minutes before rolling dough out until paper thin (use a floured or non-stick surface to prevent sticking). Cut into long, thin strips using a pizza cutter and then let the noodles rest.

Start the potatoes: peel and dice into small pieces. Boil until soft, then drain.

Beat the potatoes with the cream cheese, butter, garlic powder, and a couple tablespoons of chicken broth until light and fluffy. Cover and set aside until ready to serve.

Remove the chicken thighs from the pot of boiling broth and shred.

Add the noodles to the pot of broth to cook for a couple of minutes. Once the noodles are done, add the shredded chicken back to the pot and mix.

Drain a bit of the broth from the pot-- eyeball it. You want enough broth to keep the mixture moist, but not so much that it looks like a soup. Imagine about a cup of broth left in the pot.